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The 2018 Interview Series Featuring C.S. Boyack

It’s time for the next subject for my 2018 author interview series. Author interviews are posted every Friday throughout the year.

I am honored to continue this series with author and blogger C.S. Boyack. I enjoy C.S. Boyack’s books and I think you will too. If you love a well-told story with twists and turns, you should check them out.

To coincide with this interview, C.S. is hosting a one-day giveaway of his book, The Hat. I have read this book and found it most entertaining. You can find out more about it at the end of this interview.

You can catch up with all of my past author interviews (nearly 200) on my Author Directory page.

If you’re an author interested in being interviewed in this series, I still have limited spots available for 2018. You can email me at don@donmassenzio.com

Now, please enjoy this interview with C.S. Boyack:

Do you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?

I always try to write my own stories and hope it’s what readers want. My approach is the write the book I would want to read. It’s my hope that some people out there are like me and would want to read it too.

If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?

Get your butt in gear! I dabbled back in the 1980s, and other aspects of life got the better of me. I didn’t get serious about writing until I was just shy of fifty. Today, I wonder where I’d be if I learned all those little things about writing fiction twenty years earlier.

What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel?

This is the wrong question for me, because it’s the big ones that tend to stick with me. Most of them got popular for a reason. Now if you’d asked about the super-popular ones that I didn’t enjoy…

Do you read your book reviews? How do you deal with bad or good ones?

I know we aren’t supposed to, but I read them all. A good one can make my day. A bad one might still have a grain of something I can learn from. It may be too late for the current book, but I might be able to apply something to the next one.

Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?

Not really, but I’ve been toying with something along that line. Something like people in a future book watching an Enhanced League baseball game. If I decide to write that one, it will include many things like this.

Do you Google yourself?

No, but I do Google Lisa Burton. For those who don’t know me, Lisa is my original character who serves as a spokesmodel for my writing career. Think of her like my Geico gecko. Since she is in so many of my promotions, having her images hit on the first page of a Google search means I’m doing well. (She seems to have a competition with Tim Burton’s ex-wife going on.)

In fact, have a picture of one of Lisa’s posters to promote my new book THE HAT.

What is your favorite childhood book?

I loved THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY. The old Disney movie was also one of my favorites, not the newer version where the animals talked. In fact, I owned bull terriers for over eighteen years, just like Old Bodger.

My wife and I own bulldogs now.

If you had to do something differently as a child or teenager to become a better writer as an adult, what would you do?

Pay more attention in school. Honestly, there are some things I wish I had learned back then that would have served me better as a writer.

I have a powerful imagination that serves me well as an author of speculative fiction. However, that same imagination took me away during boring days in the classroom.

How long on average does it take you to write a book?

Interesting question, because I write different kinds of books. My newest one is a novella, and the first draft took about three months. I’ve been known to work on a novel for over a year, but that’s the outside limit. I once wrote an entire novel in about four months when the Muse was on my side.

Thanks for having me over today, Don. You’re providing a wonderful outlet for authors to present themselves and their wares. I hope you know you’re always welcome back at my place too.

***

The Hat:

Lizzie St. Laurent is dealing with many of the struggles of young life. She lost her grandmother, and her living arrangements. Her new roommate abandoned her, and she’s working multiple jobs just to keep her head above water.

She inherits an old hat from her grandmother’s estate, but it belonged to her grandfather. This is no ordinary hat, but a being from an alternate dimension. One with special powers.

Lizzie and the hat don’t exactly hit it off right away, but when her best friend’s newborn is kidnapped by a ring of baby traffickers, Lizzie turns to the hat for help. This leads her deep into her family history and a world she’s never known.

Lizzie gives up everything to rescue the babies. She loses her jobs, and may wind up in jail before it’s over. Along the way, she and the hat may have a new way of making ends meet.

Humorous and fun, The Hat is novella length. Wonderful escapism for an afternoon.

I was born in a town called Elko, Nevada. I like to tell everyone I was born in a small town in the 1940s. I’m not quite that old, but Elko has always been a little behind the times. This gives me a unique perspective of earlier times, and other ways of getting by. Some of this bleeds through into my fiction.

I moved to Idaho right after the turn of the century, and never looked back. My writing career was born here, with access to other writers and critique groups I jumped in with both feet.

I like to write about things that have something unusual. My works are in the realm of science fiction, paranormal, and fantasy. The goal is to entertain you for a few hours. I hope you enjoy the ride.

Reblogged this on Smorgasbord – Variety is the spice of life and commented:
C.S.Boyack is the guest of Don Massenzio today as part of his 2018 Interview series.. interesting questions.. so do you Google yourself.. and what would you have done differently as a teenager? #recommended

Reblogged this on Entertaining Stories and commented:
I’m over at Don Massenzio’s place today. Come check out the interview, and some of Don’s wares while you’re there. Also, to celebrate my interview, The Hat is free today. It’s a one day only deal, so snag your copy while you can.

Great interview, guys! And, as ever, I love the Lisa graphics 🙂 Really enjoyed reading The Hat, and can’t wait to dive in to Craig’s latest book The Yak Guy Project! Have a great weekend, Craig and Don 🙂

A lot of writers, me included, wished we would have started writing in our early days. I use to agree with this but now I look at as life’s lessons. If we had not experienced all that we have we may not have had the ability to write the way we do today.

My mind would have been a lot sharper in my 20’s but my experience not as much. It would have been dull and empty. If we start writing later in life it simply means we have of things to say.

A great interview with Craig! Glad to see him over here in the “hot” seat! I loved The Hat! I want to see more stories about Lizzie and her cohort. LOVE all the Lisa Burton posters and interesting that she outranks Craig on Google. 🙂

I still have to read The Hat but I started reading The Yak Guy and I have to say it’s interesting, not knowing who he is, how he got there, it really pulls you in! Great interview, Craig! The Incredible Journey was one of my favorite books too! And like you, I wish I’d really made this writing thing more of a solid thing in my life long before I did. I just hit fifty this year.

I have you by a few years, but I agree. There’s nothing I can change about it, but trying to write the best stories I can at whatever age. Glad you’re enjoying Yak Guy. They are very different stories, but I think they are both recognizable as mine.